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COFYRIGIIT DEPOSIT 



REED VOICES 



BOOKS BY MR. KENYON 

PROSE 

loiterings in old flelds 
Remembered Days 
Retribution 

verse 

The Fallen and Other Poems 

Out of the Shadows 

Songs in All Seasons 

In Realms of Gold 

At the Gate of Dreams 

An Oaten Pipe 

A Little Book of Lullabies 

Poems 



Reed Voices 



BY 



JAMES B. KENYON 
M 



NEW YORK 

JAMES T. WHITE & CO. 

1917 



For the privilege of reprinting many of the poems in 
this volume grateful acknowledgements are due to the 
Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's Magazine, Harper's Maga- 
zine, Harper's Weekly, Munsey's Magazine, Ainslee's, 
People' Magazine, Popular Magazine, Bellman, Lippin- 
cott's, Smart Set, Designer, Town and Country, Church- 
man, New York Sun, New York Times, Art World 
and other publications. 



^t> 



DEC -5 1317 



Copyright, 1917 
By James T. White & Co. 



©C!.A47fl39^ 



CONTENTS 

Reed Voices 

The Sleepers 15 

We Will Keep Our Dreams 18 

The Masqueraders 19 

Heimweh 20 

The Unseen World 20 

The Deserted Garden 21 

Belated 23 

Petronius Arbiter 25 

The Truant 26 

The Turning of the Road 27 

Perpetua 28 

A Breath of Violets 29 

The Harpsichord 30 

Home at Evening Time 31 

The Brookside 32 

Phaon Concerning Sappho 33 

A Quaker Maid 34 

Playmates 35 

The Viewpoint 36 

The Bibliophile 37 

The Immortal 38 

The Magic Touch 39 

My House 40 



At Fourscore 41 

The Endless Renewing 42 

Would You Come ? 43 

Nature's Child 44 

The Side Unseen 45 

A Memory of Home 46 

A Colonial Memory 47 

The Wood-Thrush 43 

Nesting Time Again 50 

Evening Among the Oaks 50 

Contrast 51 

Midwinter 52 

Vanished 53 

The Mother 54 

An Attic Chamber 55 

The Veery 57 

In Exile 58 

The Coming Bard 59 

The Transformation 60 

Deserted 61 

At a Bookstall 62 

In the Night- Watches 63 

The Reconciliation 64 

Abandoned 65 

A Modern Orpheus 66 

Two Lives 67 

August 63 

The Enigma 69 

The Eclipse 70 



10 



Quatrains : 

Squandered 71 

The Derelict 71 

The Singer 71 

Thyself 71 

Hymn for the Empire State 71 

At the Sign of the Heart 

Wizardry 75 

The Late Comer 76 

Sometime — Somewhere 77 

Where Dreams Come True 78 

The Answer 79 

The Fledgeling 80 

Recognition 80 

Love's Renascence 81 

The Vernal Call 82 

Vale 82 

The Whispered Word 83 

Towards the Sunset 84 

The First Tryst 86 

Divided 87 

Her Returning 87 

Disinherited 88 

Antiphonal 89 

O Breath of the Golden Day 89 

Valley Born 90 

Unf orgotten 91 

Fulfillment 92 

At Sunset 93 



li 



All Beauteous Things 94 

For Thine Own Sake 95 

Song 96 

Her Coming 96 

Her Loveliness 97 

The Paradox 98 

The Universal Prayer 98 

Cathedral Aisles 

His Earthly Courts 101 

The Sheltering Care 102 

As a Little Child 104 

Elim 105 

The Strength of the Hills 106 

A Morning Orison 107 

Compensation 108 

Ichabod 109 

Rain on the Sea 110 

Beyond the Meridian Ill 

Day by Day 112 

Learned at Last 113 

"For So He Giveth His Beloved Sleep" 114 

"And Thy Sleep Shall Be Sweet" 115 

Recompense 116 

The Divine Assurance 117 

As Rain on the Mown Grass 118 

The Rest 119 

Surrender 120 

"Ye Have Done It Unto Me" 121 

Homeward 121 



12 



REED VOICES 



'Mid the dusk reeds that fledge the twilight streams, 
Nature's wild troubadours, the breezes, make 

Such sweet strange songs as echo through our dreams, 
And haunt our baffled memories when we wake. 



14 



THE SLEEPERS 

DO they whisper in the dark, 
And to one another call 
Through the perfumed hush, nor mark 
Time's remote processional? 

Wrapt in silence, do they hear 
Green things growing overhead — 

Silver tinklings, thin and clear, 
Where the brook slants o'er its bed? 

Do they never seek to rise 

From the clods about them pressed, 
Love's old hunger in their eyes, 

Love's old ardors in their breast? 

When each new spring brings again 

Gush of song and flush of bloom, 
And the warm breath of the rain 

Blown through aisles of verdurous gloom- 
When the twilights ebb and flow, 

And through evening dews and musk 
Violet shadows come and go 

Round young lovers in the dusk — 

Feel they not the kindling blood 
In their dead veins stir and leap, 

And old longings, like a flood, 

Through their troubled quiet sweep? 



15 



Or, when winter days are drear, 
And o'er many a sparkling roof 

Curls the smoke of household cheer, 
Of love's vestal flame the proof — 

When through purple shades of night, 
Past the wind-swept, snowy wood, 

Winks the watched-for windowed light. 
Star of love's solicitude — 

Then do rumors and desires, 

Borne through death's unsunned eclipse, 
In them wake the ancient fires? 

Dreams of lips upon their lips? 

Groping touch of babes that roves 
O'er the bosom's throbbing swell? 

Children's laughter in the groves? 
Twinkling footsteps in the dell? 

All the fond, far plaintive things 
Vanished with the vanished years — 

Bring these no dear comfortings? 
In -the dust no healing tears ? 

And when summer days are long, 
And the bees drone in the flowers. 

And the pewits lift their song, 
Iterant through sunlit hours ; 



16 



From the mossy woodpaths where 
Youth pursued, 'mid trailing boughs, 

Rosy shapes with streaming hair 
Sidewise blown from ivory brows ; 

See they not in signals mute 
Lifted hands that gleam and wave, 

While the riotous currents shoot 

Through the frost-bands of the grave? 

Barefoot milkmaids as they pass 

Singing to the vocal morn ; 
Shining fruit in orchard grass ; 

Sickles flashing 'mid the corn ; 

Yule-logs blazing on the hearth ; 

Smiles and kindly speech of men ; 
All the homely ways of earth — 

Yearn they not for these again? 

Or, pavilioned round with sleep, 
Missing naught that they forego, 

Do they lie content to keep 
Secrets that we do not know? 



17 



WE WILL KEEP OUR DREAMS 

OUR dreams — nay, soul, we will not let them go ; 
What though the braggart world scoff and deny, 

And pygmies in the market strive and cry, 
As emmet-like they hurry to and fro? 
The bright hours lessen, and the shadows grow, 

But we will seek the silence, thou and I, 

Content, while fame and treasure pass us by, 
To rove through quiet coverts that we know. 
Yea, we will hearken to the wordless speech 

Of opening buds beneath the vernal showers ; 
To us the morn its dewy lore shall teach, 

The evening whisper o'er its sleeping flowers; 
And secrets the stars utter, each to each, 

Shall breathe of Peace 'mid her immortal bowers 



is 



THE MASQUERADER 

ABOVE her sunny head the netted boughs 
Wove delicate arabesques ; unfolding buds, 
With faint elusive hints of vapory green, 
Festooned the aisles; from every mossy bank 
Shy violets peeped; and where pale ferns uncurled 
Their silvery fronds amid the russet leaves, 
A slender rill rang all its crystal bells, 
Deliriously free. Returning birds 

Twittered from swinging branches where she moved, 
Her young lips tremulous with a little song 
Fledged from her heart. 

Then suddenly she saw 
Before her one who tottered as he walked, 
Oft pausing, while he leaned upon his staff, 
To rest his feeble limbs. His wrinkled hands 
With palsy shook, and from his wasted form 
Loosely the garments hung in many a fold. 
With pitying steps she hastened to his side ; 
"Poor man," she pleaded, "you are so infirm, 
And I so 3'oung and strong, pray lean on me." 
Whereat he turned and clasped her where she stood; 
And she, all breathless with surprise and fright, 
Lifting a moment her blanched face to his, 
Beheld beneath a thatch of snow-white hair 
Youth's shining locks, while on her own eyes beamed, 
From out that frosty counterfeit of age, 
The radiant, warm and mirth-brimmed eyes of love. 



19 



HEIMWEH 

AH, could it be once more ere life's wan close ! — 
That I might climb the long ancestral hill 

Where the smooth slope dips to the shattered mill, 
And the shrunk brook amid its alders flows; 
Feel the soft wind that down the valley blows ; 

Hear in the dewy hush the whip-poor-will 

Thresh the gray silence, and through evening's chill 
Breathe once again the scent of thyme and rose : 
Then would great peace flood all my avid breast ; 

Welcome would be the dusk of twilight skies; 
And as a late bird hastens to her nest 

Through deepening gloom with little happy cries, 
So should I seek the covert of my rest, 

And give to death my sleep-consenting eyes. 

THE UNSEEN WORLD 

WE never dreamed it was so near, 
And yet we might have known, 
Had we surmised from what bright sphere 
The viewless wings had flown, 
Or seen above her cradled head 
A mist-like, shining halo spread. 

But round her pillowed helplessness 

Some wistful influence 
Wove its soft spell, nor could we guess 
What beckonings lured her hence, 
Till through the fond, enfolding skies 
She vanished back to Paradise. 

20 



THE DESERTED GARDEN 

HITHER like ghosts old memories steal 
Here Time forgets his idle glass; 
About the crumbling borders wheel 
The flickering shadows o'er the grass. 

Forget-me-nots with eyes of blue, 
Myrtle and thyme and mignonette, 

Iris and lavender and rue, 
'Mid alien brambles linger yet. 

There where the clustered rowans brood 
Glimmers the firefly's vagrant spark, 

And in the unfretted solitude 
The fountain murmurs through the dark. 

Yon mossy dial still weds the hours ; 

Light feet that thither used to run 
Now brush the dews from other flowers 

That smile beneath no earthly sun. 

Ah, slender world of lost delights ! 

Sweet privacies, communions dear, 
Shy whispers in the velvet nights — 

What happy love once haunted here ! 

And still about the mouldering place 

Linger the gentle presences — 
Fair phantoms, each with girlish face, 

Gliding beneath the wistful trees. 



21 



Yet even here 'mid ruined walks, 

And growths that clog the dwindling stream, 
And blooms decaying on their stalks, 

The heart renews the deathless dream. 

Somewhere beneath a dappled sky, 
On green slopes pied with autumn's gold, 

While flocks, unfearing, wander nigh, 
Once more the ancient tale is told. 

Afar a swart-armed reaper sings ; 

Nearer, adown the hollow vale, 
The music of an anvil rings 

O'er the dull throbbing of a flail. 

And where the river's sinuous tide, 
Dimpling among its sedges, flows, 

With wicker creel against his side, 
Homeward a loitering fisher goes. 

So, while the season weaves its spell, 
And evening sows its early dew, 

Love's troth is plighted; all is well; 
And nature keeps her purpose true. 



22 



BELATED 

HERE through years she dwelt apart 
Still I see her, as of old; 
Round her swallows wheel and dart, 
Summer spreads its cloth of gold. 

Droning bees in dew-wet flowers, 
Ploughmen shouting to their teams, 

Whisperings of fragrant showers — 
All are mingled with her dreams. 

Backward roll the cloudy years ; 

Other scenes before her rise ; 
Other sounds are in her ears ; 

Other suns climb other skies. 

She, a damsel sore distressed, 

From her ivied casement high 
Leans with dolor-stricken breast, 

Watching with a haggard eye ; 

Till, through mists that blur her sight, 
Pricking o'er the wide champaign, 

She beholds her proud young knight 
Leading up his bannered train. 

And she knows the hour is near 
When, beyond that prisoning wall, 

She shall vanish without fear — 
Borne afar, love's happy thrall. 



23 



Or, through fields with daisies pied, 

Hooded falcon on her wrist, 
Slim hound frisking at her side, 

Forth she fares to keep her tryst. 

There where immemorial trees 

Lift gnarled boughs to sun and rain, 

Mid bird-haunted privacies, 
Lives the old sweet tale again. 

Thus, while tongues still clashed and strove, 

And joy withered at a breath, 
Her unaging spirit wove 

Rainbows o'er the gulfs of death. 

Gentle dreamer ! soul of snow ! 

Out of place and season born, 
Hither come — how, none may know — 

Wandering from some earlier morn, 

Teach us, though the world be wide, 

And life miss its high emprise, 
That the heart, whate'er betide, 

Still may find its Paradise. 



PETRONIUS ARBITER 

PETRONIUS, how the years have sped ! 
Gone are the laughing lips and eyes 
Thou knew'st of yore, and round thy head 
Thickly the passing centuries 

Have wrapped the silence and the dust, 
Since thou didst snap life's brittle ties, 
Sated with weariness and disgust. 

The world its hollow laughter keeps, 

Its bootless strife, its wintry pain, 
Its sunless lairs where evil sleeps, 
Its clouded eyes that watch in vain ; 

Yet somewhere there's an infant's smile, 
A maid's soft "yes," a slave's rent chain 
Proves life hath something still worth while. 



25 



THE TRUANT 

OCOME from out the shining mists, child of 
the long-ago, 
Come with the songs of vanished birds and comrade 

streams that flow; 
Come with the balmy airs that breathe from skies of 

cloudless blue, 
Come with the perfume of the rose, wet by the early 
dew. 

Come back, O child of summers gone, come with the 
cool, clear morn, 

With swallows twittering at the eaves above the 
tasseled corn ; 

O fair-haired boyish wanderer, heart-high in meadow- 
sweet, 

Come from the dreamlands where so long have roamed 
your happy feet. 

Bring back the old delight in life, the freshness of the 

world, 
The azure banners that the spring about the pools 

unfurled, 
The buttercups and daisies, and the clover by the 

wood, 
The yellow-belted bee within the poppy's silken hood. 

O touch the eyes so weary grown, and touch the frosted 

hair, 
And from the troubled bosom lift its leaden weight of 

care; 
O darling rover, from the golden mists of memory, 
Emerge one little hour and so restore my youth to me. 
26 



THE TURNING OF THE ROAD 
HE day and the season call me, and all my blood 



T 

JL is stirred 



For kindling ardors mount and strive, and morn- 
ing's glory burns, 
Along the footpaths where of old the autumn crickets 
chirred 
And winter's drifts heaped hill and hollow, where 
the long road turns. 

O happy are the southwinds, and happy are the streams, 
And with the gold of cowslips all the meadows are 
ablaze, 
While over fields and woodlands break a thousand 
flying gleams, 
And faery feet go twinkling down the green un- 
trodden ways. 

Beyond the turning of the road the silvery clematis, 
Wild grape and jewelled columbine uplift a purfled 
screen ; 
And there it waits for me at last — the fate I shall not 
miss, 
The voice that I have never heard, the face I have 
not seen. 

Somewhere it waits me still, there at the turning of 
the road, 
Love with the laughing rosy lips, pain with the 
clouded eyes, 

27 



Shy fortune with her brimming horn, age spent be- 
neath its load — 
I reck not which, for in my heart the young spring 
calls and cries. 



PERPETUA 

PERPETUA, what still remains 
Of thee, fair maiden? With the grains 
Of amber wheat, all unafraid, 
In fragrant darkness thou wast laid. 
And yet that radiant loveliness 
Blooms somewhere sweetly still to bless 
Time's desert paths ; thine April eyes 
In beauty match eve's voilet skies, 
While round thy roseleaf lips the light 
Dimples in smiles than dawn more bright. 
Some wizard, chill, compelling love 
A subtle weird about thee wove, 
With hushed fond whisperings of rest 
Breathed softly through thy snow-pure breast 
Then thou didst haste, ere youth was fled, 
To make with death thy bridal bed. 
But thou hast not evanished quite, 
For still the heart's tear-cleansed sight 
Beholds thee in morn's streaming rays, 
And in the woodland's mossy ways, 
In grass, in flowers, in gurgling springs, 
In stars, in clouds, in winged things 
Born of the da}' ; thy lyric voice 
Is breathed through all things that rejoice; 
Nay, while thou liv'st in earth and sky, 
Perpetua, thou canst not die. 

28 



A BREATH OF VIOLETS 
(In the City) 

A BREATH faint as a dream — then flashed this 
scene 
Upon his inward vision : a clear rill 
Sparkling amid its sallows; tender green 

Of springtime meadows ; light upon the hill ; 
And barefoot sunbrowned lads that blithely pass 
'Mid dim sweet dews stili quickening in the grass. 

Around him rise the clamors of the mart; 

He hears them not ; — above an emerald bank 
The swallows skim ; once more, with eager heart, 

He hastes where shy cool-rooted violets prank 
The brookside, each a pale and hooded nun 
Hiding her virgin forehead from the sun. 

Flushed cheeks and wind-tossed hair, and morning's gold 
On hill and hollow ; for a brief glad space 

He sees them all — till once again are rolled 
O'er him the city's tides ; before his face 

A harsh-voiced squalid flower vender stands 

With violets in his soiled, importunate hands. 



29 



THE HARPSICHORD 

(In the Metropolitan Museum) 

THE hands that swept these keys — where are they 
now? 

And the old melodies, 
Like winds that once sang through some leafy bough 

Beneath the summer skies? 
O vision of delight ! — each slender throat, 

White as the snowy swan, 
And airy feet that through the dances float, 

As floats the sapphire dawn 
Above the hilltops when the day is near — 

I see them all again 
Moving beneath the tapers, and I hear 

Each mounting, passionate strain 
That set young bosoms pulsing, long ago 

When life and love were new, 
Till 'mid the dim stars paled the spent moon's bow 

O'er meadows gray with dew. 
Ah, the dear eyes that with strange witch fires glowed 

Long since to earth were closed : 
The lips that all their pearly treasures showed 

Have many years reposed, 
In that strait house where night and silence dwell. 

Unvexed by doubt or dream: 
Yet deathless youth still weaves its world-old spell, 

Love breathes its ancient theme. 



30 



HOME AT EVENING-TIME 

gloaming floats the tinkling 



UP through the purple 
of her bell: 



She's crossing now the brook that gurgles down yon 

grassy dell ; 
For wheresoe'er 'mid woodlands dim or meadows she 

may roam, 
At milking-time with lowings soft the evening brings 

her home. 

Where huddled sheep by pasture-bars lift many a 

plaintive bleat, 
Along the leaf-embowered lanes, with twinklings of 

bare feet, 
'Mid daisies gleaming on the sward like glimmering 

flecks of foam, 
The children all come trooping back, for evening brings 

them home. 

Ah, when for me the day is done, and falls the twi- 
light's hush, 

And from each sapphire peak dissolves the sunset's 
lingering flush — 

When one by one the slow stars kindle in night's 
shadowy dome, 

Then from my life's long wanderings may evening 
bring me home. 



31 



, THE BROOKSIDE 

PAST the green fields and the wood, 
Slipping down o'er silver sands, 
Hourly hastes the mimic flood 
To the osiered marish lands. 

Tenuous treble, faint bassoon, 
All day long its strains are heard, 

Dreamlike, far — an elfin tune 
Set to voice of wind and bird. 

When the brooding night is still, 
And the moonlight o'er the grass 

Steals like mist from hill to hill, 
Furtive creatures come and pass. 

Shy furred things with startled ears 
'Twixt the water arums glide, 

And all palpitant with fears 
Lap the clear and cooling tide. 

Oft at mid-noon's breathless height, 
Where the pool spreads shimmering rings, 

Herons into sudden flight 

Upward launch on silent wings. 

Mayhap here some smiling maid 
Long ago, 'mid summer flowers 

Heard the old sweet tale and strayed 
Back to Eden's happy bowers. 



32 



What though fled th'e primrose dream, 
And the lips that smiled are dust? 

Still unaging flows the stream; 
Love renews its ancient trust. 



PHAON CONCERNING SAPPHO 

THAT she is fair of face I know full well ; 
Her tuneful lips are touched with Delphic fire 

Hers is the haunting voice of wild desire; 
She weaves about the world her lyric spell. 
When her deft fingers sweep the sounding shell, 

'Tis as Apollo's self had struck the lyre, 

Waking to music the immortal choir 
Which in the shining courts of morning dwell. 
Yet, ever to a maid with dove-like eyes — 

A gentle maid for whom dawn peaceful days, 
Who thriftily her busy distaff plies, 

Content and glad in simple household ways — 
My heart turns as the bird that homeward flies, 

Leaving the queen of song to her proud bays. 



33 



A QUAKER MAID 

SHE sits beneath the trellised vine 
Beside the open door; 
Warm arabesques of sunlight shine 
Along the checkered floor. 

Her busy needles wink and glance 

As still her task she plies ; 
By bordered walks the midges dance; 

Above, the swallow flies. 

Her face is calm; her eyes are meek; 

About her smooth young throat, 
And lightly blown o'er either cheek, 

The silken tendrils float. 

Beneath the snow-white kerchief spread 

Across her placid breast, 
Unvexed by change or darkling dread, 

Her spirit lies at rest. 

Peace is her world; no thought of ill, 

Nor breath of sordid strife, 
E'er taints the pure desires that fill 

Her cool hushed round of life. 

Afar the city roars ; there sweeps 
The long white way that gleams 

For other feet; she sits and keeps 
Alone her quiet dreams. 



34 



PLAYMATES 

WHERE the willows dip and dream 
By the iris bordered stream, 
Long ago we sat and played, 
Barefoot lad and nut brown maid. 

Idly poised the dragonfly 
On an arrow arum nigh, 
While the summer's sunlit skies 
Smiled within her azure eyes. 

Oft she caught, on each small hand, 
The "cat's cradle," where it spanned 
'Twixt my palms the narrow space, 
Bending down her eager face. 

Sometimes in the twilight hush 
From the wood the hermit thrush 
Sent his bell-like vesper call 
Through the dusk of evenfall. 

Ah, the days of long ago ! 
Still the dimpling waters flow; 
Still beside the quiet stream 
The gray willows dip and dream. 
****** 

Oh, my little playmate, gone 
With the freshness of life's dawn, 
With its dews and faery gold, 
And its wonders manifold! 



35 



Yesterday our casual feet 
Met within the crowded street, 
But I saw no greeting rise 
In your unremembering eyes. 



THE VIEWPOINT 

NOW the cool breath of waking violets 
Steals from dim nooks amid the ancient tree? 
Where midges wind their slender clarinets, 
Hour after hour, in elfin symphonies. 

One bell-like note, from some elusive spray, 
Within the shelter of its leafy screen, 

Falls as a benediction on the day, 

Borne down cathedral aisles of living green. 

Ah, haply, somewhere on the springtime skies, 
Through curtains swaying to the sun kissed air, 

A sufferer looks with pain bewildered eyes, 

And wonders that the world should be so fair. 



36 



THE BIBLIOPHILE 

WHAT does he dream there at the dusty stall, 
Rapt like a lover waiting to keep tryst? 
Wide intervals, with cool and verdurous slopes, 
Far-gleaming waters, sudden flight of birds, 
And cloudy lilacs swaying at the gate — 
Fill these the orbit of his inward vision? 
Nay, eagerly yet gently, one by one, 
Pondering he turns each frayed and time-stained page, 
Jealously scans the vellum worn and old, 
The while in formless folds his garments hang 
Loosely on his shrunk frame, and his lips move 
As though he conned a lesson o'er and o'er. 
One hope up-buoys him — that on some rare day, 
Some fortunate great day, his hands shall find, 
Carelessly jostled by its meaner fellows, 
And hidden like a jewel in a dust-heap, 
The ancient tome for which he long has sought, 
The wished-for darling of his doting heart. 



37 



THE IMMORTAL 

IT sleeps in the bud and the leaf, 
It hides in the rustling sheaf, 
It quickens the hushed, cool flowers, 
It whispers amid the showers. 

It laughs on the sun drenched hill, 

It sings in the silvern rill, 

It nestles beneath the snow, 

It stirs when the March winds blow. 

Where the braided midges dance, 
Where the wheeling swallows glance — 
It is there ; and it builds its nest 
Even in sorrow's breast. 

From the dullness of clodlike things 

It wakens and finds its wings ; 

Though the womb of the dark give it birth, 

It leaps and thrills through the earth. 

When beaten and wounded sore, 
It ariseth, o'er and o'er, 
For it never can perish quite — 
The spirit of pure delight. 



38 



THE MAGIC TOUCH 

THE eyes which love anoints shall ever see 
That which from other eyes must hidden be; 
The brook that dimples o'er its silver sands, 
The leaf stirred by the wind's invisible hands, 
The braided gnats in their delirious dance, 
The water-weed that poises its green lance, 
The bird that flashes by on slanted wing, 
The tender emerald of the bryony-ring, 
The belted bee with pollen-burdened thighs, 
The sunlit vans of wheeling dragon-flies, 
The lucent wave that lifts its feathery surge, — 
These to the heart whose vision love doth purge 
Make swift revealments of a Presence near 
Unnoted by the grosser eye and ear. 
For love-led feet in astral pathways tread ; 
In their own seasons starry dews are shed 
On life's stale dust, and down melodious ways 
Rare blooms and perfumes break through common days. 
Yea, shot through secret bowers, a sudden light 
Falls like a glory on the raptured sight, 
Till clods, and herbs, and meanest things of earth 
Transfigured glow in a celestial birth. 
O wizard, touch our eyes as 'twere with fire, 
Till all this old world's wonder and desire 
Beat up in awful splendor through the sod 
Whereon in silence walk the feet of God. 



39 



MY HOUSE 

I HAVE a little house somewhere; 
Around it, thick and long, 
The cool grass stands, and nightly there 
The cricket pipes his song. 

The stars, through still and dewy hours, 

Lean o'er the quiet place, 
While fairy hands festoon the flowers 

With shreds of silver lace. 

The door is narrow, rude and low, 

Yet takes the dawn's first kiss ; 
Before it the June roses blow 

And the wild clematis. 

Above its lintel, year by year, 

The sparrow builds and sings, 
And there, on zephyrs borne, career 

A thousand filmy wings. 

There oft a wild, shy music wakes ; 

Winds many an elfin horn ; 
And there flash into amber flakes 

The footprints of the morn. 

Sometimes when hushed warm noons are bright, 

And shrill the locust calls, 
My rooftree basks in lovelier light 

Than bathes ancestral halls. 



40 



I have a little house somewhere ; 

Sole tenant I shall be; 
And when at length I rest me there, 

I shall sleep dreamlessly. 



AT FOURSCORE 

THE hours glide tranquilly away; 
I mourn not the unfinished task; 
I watch the placid close of day, 

Nor answer give nor question ask. 
I grieve not for the counsel spurned, 

The broken will, the conscience stilled, 
The long, hard lesson yet unlearned, 
The purpose unfulfilled. 

No Spring can wake the old desires ; 

No sadness greets the fallen leaf ; 
In ashes of the ancient fires 

Relives no spark, however brief. 
I reck not now the battle's stress, 

The distant cries, the trampled plain ; 
Ah, respite after weariness ! 

Quiescence after pain! 



41 



THE ENDLESS RENEWING 

LONG, long ago such mornings broke; 
On jeweled slopes strange fires awoke 
Up from the south warm odors streamed, 
And 'mid green fields far waters gleamed. 
The dogwood through its leafy bars 
Shook out its immemorial stars, 
While from their cool nest-cradling boughs 
Small minstrels piped their lyric vows. 
Soft showers caressed the laughing world ; 
The ferns their feathery fronds uncurled ; 
The osier poised its slender lance ; 
A thousand wings, with gleam and glance, 
Pulsed onward where down pathways free 
The jocund hours danced gleefully. 
O wistful heart, be glad that yet 
The rainbow dreams, the sweet regret, 
Ghosts of dear memories that have died, 
Fond hopes that passed unsatisfied, 
Old ardors of the vanished prime. 
Breathe upward through the dust of time. 
For life is fresh, and love is new, 
And youth still keeps its vernal dew, 
And greets the season's pomp of green, 
Its aureate mists, its astral sheen, 
With the vague wonder and delight 
Which years can never banish quite, 
While quickens in the kindling blood 
The rapture of the swelling bud. 



42 



WOULD YOU COME? 

THE little pool is there; still o'er it lean 
The watching elms, while the soft summer skies, 
Seen through the braided boughs that intervene, 
Are blue as memory paints your girlish eyes. 

And there the narrow path winds from the hill 
Down to the daisied fields, the billowing grain; 

Ah, if you knew they waited for you still — 
The dear old scenes — would you not come again? 

Come from the crowded streets, the sordid ways, 
To seek the sweet familiar haunts of yore, 

Remembering still those bare-foot, dawn-fresh days — 
O my lost playmate, would you come once more? 



43 



NATURE'S CHILD 

SHE grew in beauty like a flower; 
Her spirit, sweet as morning air, 
Caught sunshine from each aureate hour, 
Prospered by nature's fostering care. 

Some magic touch of woodland grace, 

Some hint of leafy mysteries, 
Had left its impress on her face, 

Its memory in her shadowy eyes. 

A haunting sense of things akin ; 

Of mossy banks and bosky dells, 
Of gnats that in slant sunrays spin, 

Of rillets chiming crystal bells; 

Of rosy mists that wrap the morn, 

Of shimmering waves and burnished wings, 

Of dew upon the tasseled corn, 
Of rushes where the gossamer clings — 

All these were broidered o'er with light ; 

She wreathed with bloom each common day, 
Until, elusive as a sprite, 

On truant feet she tripped away. 

For nature breathed her darling's name 
And called her far; yet, we can see 

Her presence, like a lambent flame, 
Transfused through all fair things that be. 



44 



THE SIDE UNSEEN 

BENEATH the spreading boughs she stood, 
The farmer's daughter, young and fair, 
While shadows caught, as in a snood, 

The tresses of her shining hair ; 
She leaned above the lichened bar, 

And gazed, with eyes that softly glowed, 
Where through the opal haze a car 
Whirled down the long and dusty road. 

Upon her vision lingered yet 

A fragile, weary face, gray-veiled, 
Wherein the lines of grief were set; 

She saw the drooping lips that failed 
To hide the pain and discontent 

Still laying waste an unloved breast ; 
Yet as she homeward slowly went, 

Her soul was rilled with vague unrest. 

Hers not the hours of ease and wealth, 

Of costly robes and priceless gems, 
But sweet cool morns that breathed of health, 

The hushed eve's dewy diadems, 
A sunlit world, a turquoise heaven, 

Calm days with lowly labors rife ; 
Yet these, all these, she would have given, 

To live that other woman's life. 

Arid she who fared upon her way, 

Sweeping through summer sun and shade, 
45 



Scarce saw for tears the smiling da}-, 
But longed to be the farmer's maid ; 

Her hateful nights ne'er brought release; 
Each morn anew some venomed dart 

Smote down her slender dream of peace, 
While hope fled wailing from her heart. 



A MEMORY OF HOME 
(In the City) 

THROUGH purple twilight still the eye may mark, 
Like slender campaniles, fretted tiles 

And towering chimneys, where the sunset smiles 
Softly beneath the slowly gathering dark. 
A silence falls upon the shadowy park; 

And past the clustered tree-tops, miles on miles, 

Borne faintly from afar through leafy aisles, 
The homesick fancy hears a farm-dog's bark. 
And now I breathe the scent of clover-fields ; 

Through summer gloom the fitful fireflies roam; 
A distant bell makes silvery appeals 

From the low vale beneath its starry dome ; 
And lo ! o'er leagues of winking lights there steals, 

Dewy and sweet, the memory of home. 



46 



A COLONIAL MEMORY 

I HEARD her footsteps on the stair; 
The silken rustling of her dress ; 
And forth there stole upon the air 
The perfume of her loveliness; 
Adown her gleaming shoulders streamed 

Her cloudy tresses, dusk as night, 
And round her brow I saw, it seemed, 
An aureole of light. 

And as she stood a moment, slim, 

And tall and beautiful and kind, 
The flaring tapers all waxed dim, 

Chill sighs went past me on the wind. 
Then woke my heart ; and suddenly 

I knew, in that dissolving shade, 
The ghost of a dear memory 

That never shall be laid. 



THE MIRACLE 

HEARKEN ! the ancient cry ! 
A call from the heart of the wood 
'T is heard in the deeps of the conscious sky, 
In the quickening solitude. 

My soul, attune thine ear ; 

Thou know'st the signal well; 
The birth of Spring's first flower is near — 

The world-old miracle. 

47 



THE WOOD-THRUSH 

WHAT a spacious realm is thine, 
For that minstrelsy divine! 
In the dusk far solitudes 
Of the cool untrodden woods — 
Haunt of gnat and sylvan bee — 
Thou dost choose thy privacy. 

Somewhere caught within thy throat 
Is the myriad, liquid note 
Of the raindrops 'mid the leaves, 
Slipping down from emerald eaves ; 
And the runnel's roundelay, 
Rising, falling, night and day. 

Clear as rings a crystal bell 
Is thine iterant ritournel; 
Ripening nuts in coverts green, 
Whispers where the flowers lean, 
Voice of water, wind, and tree — 
Music heard of none save thee. 

Thou dost ponder, o'er and o'er, 
All the strange, elusive lore 
Of each shy, wild, furtive thing 
Light of foot or fleet of wing; 
And thy song, remote, withdrawn, 
Greets the evening and the dawn. 



48 



Would that we thy calm might share — 
We, the sons of toil and care; 
Soothed should be each aching breast, 
Hushed the fever and unrest, 
And from off the shadowed soul 
Doubts forevermore should roll. 

Still our weary footsteps roam; 
Where thy mate is, there is home ; 
And no darkening of the sky 
Bodes for thee disaster nigh ; 
Though the tempest o'er thee rides, 
Naught may vex while love abides. 

Thine, O thine the better part! 

Still unspoiled within thy heart 

Thou dost keep the old sweet song 

Chance nor change shall ever wrong. 
******* 

There ! it pulses once again ; 
Listen! ah, that wondrous strain! 



49 



NESTING TIME AGAIN 

SWALLOW, swallow, from the distant lands, 
Northward winging o'er the silver sands, 
Past the wine-dark stream and misty plain — 
Swallow, nesting time has come again. 

As the pulsing sap mounts to the bud, 
Sudden longings stir within your blood; 
Sounds of singing rill and vernal rain — 
Swallow, nesting time has come again. 

Happy visions, yours, of moss-grown eaves, 
Sunlight sifting through the flickering leaves, 
Watchful, busy mate and birdlings twain — 
Swallow, nesting time has come again. 



EVENING AMONG THE OAKS 

FLITTING through twilight and shadows, 
Dimly I see, 
With tenuous robes like a mist-wreath 

And pale feet that flee, 
A glimmering shape in the silence, 

And, tossed on the air 
Like a cloudy veil blown from white shoulders, 
A dryad's dusk hair. 



50 



CONTRAST 

I SAW his face black with the dust of toil; 
His eyes gleamed white from out the swart 

expanse ; 
Upon his knotted hands the nails were broken ; 
His grimy shirt, wide open at the throat, 
Revealed a hirsute chest streaked with the soot 
And sweat of the foul mines where, in the dark, 
Amid the little dancing lamps, he strove 
And like a Titan wrestled with the earth; 
The mountain's ooze had dripped upon him; scars, 
Where the fanged rocks had gashed him, seamed his 

cheeks. 
Bent, not with age, and shuffling as he walked, 
Spewed from the pit with the new-risen sun, 
He sought the joyless lair he called his home, 
Brute-like to eat, then sink in sodden sleep 
And for a while forget. 

And she who passed him, 
Daintily gloved and gowned, with slender feet 
Tapping their tiny heels upon the pave, 
Nursling of luxury, daughter of content, 
Gave him no heed, save that one delicate hand, 
With scarcely conscious motion, swept aside 
Her garments lest they touch him. Yet the fires 
That warmed and comforted her tender flesh, 
And made her glad, were fed from that man's life. 



51 



MIDWINTER 

SOFTLY the snow's light ermine wraps the fields, 
Slow, flake by flake, descending from the clouds 
That drape the leaden heavens ; stark and cold, 
The silent trees stand on the wintry slope. 
The wind is laid, and all the world is still, 
Save the low sound wherewith the naked bough 
Lets slip its feathery burden to the earth ; 
The cock has ceased his challenge, and the dog, 
Dozing beside the hearth, forgets to bay 
The distant traveller ; all is frost and hush. 
Yet where the north's frore breath can never come. 
In chambers dark beneath the frozen clods, 
Small voices lift their elfin whisperings 
From nested seeds and rootlets, breathing all 
Of blooms, and vernal airs, and waking songs, 
When Spring shall set her lyric feet once more 
With life and beauty on the morning hills : 
Listen, my soul, these voices are for thee. 



52 



o h 



VANISHED 

sweet as early violets fresh with the breath of 
spring, 
And vague and mist-like as the wreathes of green that 

softly cling 
To hillside, vale and meadow, far wood and grassy 

shore — 
So sweet, so bright, so misty-vague the days that are 
no more. 

Down the long years come echoes low of dreamy voices 

borne 
On fragrant winds that wander from the lucid fields 

of morn; 
The gossamers are pearled with dew, and by the azure 

wold 
A million buttercups uplift their fragile urns of gold. 

There bubbles still the silver brook, the birds still 

sing and build; 
The orchards, bridal-clothed, still keep the heart of 

youth unchilled; 
All is unchanged, save that no more with rustic rod 

and line 
Whistling a barefoot urchin goes where waters leap 

and shine. 

Eager and blithe across the velvet sward he lightly 

lopes ; 
From cloudless skies the sun glows not more brightly 

than his hopes ; 

53 



He knows the haunts of dace and chub, in coverts 
green and cool, 

Where the great willow casts its shade upon the sleep- 
ing pool. 

Ah ! what avail laborious days, the striving and the 

care, 
The empty honors that are won, the fading bays we 

wear, 
If that the heart is dead at length, nor hears the old 

refrain 
Of some dear vanished morning? Oh, to be a boy 

again ! 



THE MOTHER 

THIS is the threshold where we stood 
When last her lips were pressed to mine 
I saw the pallor of her cheek, 
Her eyes with tears a-shine. 

With joy I turned to meet the world; 

My spirit no foreboding gave; 
Defeated, shorn, today I wept 

By her untended grave. 



54 



AN ATTIC CHAMBER 

HARK! the rain drips upon the broken roofl 
Ah, many a time I've heard it mid the leaves 
Of the great butternut whose branches swept 
The narrow casement of my little room 
Far hence in that dear home my boyhood knew. 
What time is it? Seven of the clock, you say? 
Now the red sun beyond the Litchfield hills 
Is setting; birds are hasting to their nests 
With low sweet cries, while half way up the slope, 
Its windows winking to the level rays, 
Stands the old house which I shall see no more. 
Is't the wind sobbing past the door I hear? 
Oft when, at eve, spent with excess of joy, 
In the cool pillow I have pressed a flushed 
Young cheek, upon the night breeze there has come 
The river's distant murmur, soothing me 
To happy slumber ; now the city roars 
Beneath yon shattered lintel, while I try 
In vain to fancy 'tis the gradual voice 
Of that loved stream. 

There is another stream, 
You say, that from beneath the great white throne 
Flows making glad the city of God? — and yet, 
Could I behold once more that winding vale, 
That twinkling flood, that moss-grown roof, and catch 
A sound of children's laughter as of yore, 
Then could I die content. 



55 



O sir, you are 
A holy man, yet still a man; your heart 
Must surely understand how all my soul 
Longs for that quiet spot far, far away, 
Where in the sunlit garden hollyhocks 
And poppies grow, and all the livelong day 
The bees keep revel, and the butterflies 
Like winged blossoms flutter to and fro. 
How the rain splashes 'gainst the panes ! 'tis cold ; 
This bed of straw and this thin coverlet 
Are pierced with mortal chill. 

A-hungered ? — no, 
I only crave a little mothering, 
For I am young yet. You are kind, sir, kind 
To pray with me, to hold my hand, and wet 
My parched lips — but O ! for that soft touch, 
When gentle fingers, light as summer dew, 
Smoothed back my hair, and o'er me bent the eyes, 
Patient and glad, that made my heaven of love. 
I'm tired now, sir, and I fain would sleep; 
It may be I shall dream of those green hills, 
That ancient time-stained house, that garden fair, 
That smiling stream, and that angelic face 
Which I shall not behold again. Farewell ! 
I do not fear ; but I am weary now, 
O ! very weary, sir, and I would sleep. 



56 



THE VEERY 

HARK! that liquid dewy note 
From the privacies remote 
Of moist coverts, leafly-dim, 
Where the veery lifts his hymn 
To the morning ; hour by hour, 
Fragrant balm from many a flower 
Lades those viewless argosies 
Bearing down each spicy breeze. 
Kingcups, violets, windflowers frail 
Watch o'erhead the white clouds sail, 
While the early bee's bassoon 
Swells and sinks like some sweet tune. 
Now afar, again more near, 
Hyacinthine, crystal-clear, 
O'er and o'er that one refrain — 
Voice of love's own tender pain — 
Hope's undying roundelay — 
Echoes in the ear of day. 



57 



IN EXILE 

BY myriad-trodden ways I go; 
And yet my feet have known 
Green banks where singing waters flow, 

And musky scents are blown 
From pastures where wild roses grow, 
Past meadows newly mown. 

Now deafening clamors stun my ear ; 

Yet I have heard the horn 
Of questing bees wind sweet and clear 

Above the tasseled corn, 
And thrushes fluting far and near 

Through all the golden morn. 

Still in my heart old memories dwell ; 

Cool dawns and quiet eves; 
Dim wooded paths, a sunlit dell, 

Low whisperings of leaves ; 
Hushed noons that weave their breathless spell: 

Swart arms that bind the sheaves. 

So, while the thunderous tides pass by, 

And granite canons roar, 
Somewhere I see a dappled sky 

Arching forevermore 
O'er smiling fields, a cottage nigh, 

And doves about the door. 



55 



THE COMING BARD 

THE world is hungering for him still; 
He comes not, yet the hour seems near 
When dawn the vision shall fulfill, 
And morning find its promised seer. 

Great souls are groping toward the light ; 

The nether deeps at last are stirred ; 
Dim eyes are straining through the night — 

When shall that new brave voice be heard ? 

The earth, grown hoary with its wrongs, 
With pain and feud and bitter strife, 

Shall gather easement from his songs, 
Rekindled faith and nobler life. 

For he shall chant of duties old, 
Of love, and truth, and gallant scars, 

Of fearsome shadows backward rolled, 
Of heavens that blossom into stars. 

And round the pathway they have trod, 
Through all the long dark centuries, 

Worn pilgrims shall at length see God 
In grass and flowers and budding trees. 

And like a sudden bugle blown 

His challenge wild and sweet shall ring, 
Till lips of clay and hearts of stone 

And sodden souls shall wake and sing. 



59 



Ah, mayhap now he yonder stands 
Where tides of traffic part and meet, 

His papers in his eager hands — 
A newsboy shouting in the street. 

THE TRANSFORMATION 

ALONG the hills the winds are mute; 
The yellow sunlight falls 
On streams by which the birds still flute 
Their evening madrigals. 

I tread the old familiar path, 

Among the peaceful sheep, 
Nor dream that e'er war's vengeful wrath 

Could o'er this landscape sweep. 

And yet far hence o'er other fields, 

By such a quiet stream, 
The shuddering heaven rocks and reels, 

And wounded horses scream ; 

And men, with hate and fury blind, 

And bayonets dripping red, 
Go charging down the poisoned wind, 

Across the mangled dead. 

Yet mayhap there, mid daisies sweet, 
When summer airs blew free, 

Some loiterer fared with aimless feet, 
Nor dreamed that this could be. 
60 



DESERTED 

THE cloudy lilacs still o'erarch the sagged and 
creaking gate ; 
For dancing feet that come no more the weed-choked 

blossoms wait; 
With sinking roof and shattered panes, and hearth- 
stone damp and cold, 
The empty house stands in its place, forlorn, and gray, 
and old. 

Yet once a bride tripped through that door when life 

was in its spring; 
There children trooped with shouts and songs that made 

the echoes ring; 
And once — ah, me ! — the heavy feet of mourners slowly 

passed 
Down yon green lane where still the elms their wheel- 
ing shadows cast. 

I 
The sweep leans o'er the moss-grown well for thirsty 

lips in vain ; 
No windowed lamp through deepening twilight twinkles 

forth again ; 
Fled are the hearts that ached, the busy hands that 

toiled are fled, 
Gone with the dews that summer drank, the leaves that 

autumn shed. 



61 






But though the seasons come and pass, and habitations 

fail, 
And life is spilled in dust like wine from out its 

chalice frail, 
Yet love is stronger far than death, and howsoe'er it 

roam, 
Somewhere it finds a resting-place and builds anew its 

home. 



AT A BOOKSTALL 

TRUE poet, I have lingered o'er thy page 
With heart a-throb ; among the tattered books, 
As one who, wandering idly through dim nooks, 
Finds a rare flower at last, so, unknown mage, 
I found thee on the vender's stall. The age 

Rolled backward suddenly; mid amber stooks 

Ruth gleaned again ; in evening-glow the rooks 

Round Camelot's towers swung. The unholy rage 

Of the crass mart died from mine ears ; and there, 

Dream-thralled, unheeding raucous cries, I stood 
Seeing the morning flame o'er Ilion fair ; 

Beaked galleys, purple-sailed, spurned the wide flood 
The Aegean burned; while Helen's sun-kissed hair 
Caught the bright sheen as in a golden snood. 



62 



IN THE NIGHT-WATCHES 

THOU earnest in the silent night; 
Thy voice was hushed and low, 
And round thee, like a misty light, 
Thy garments seemed to flow. 

Thy presence wrought the old sweet spell; 

I felt my pulses thrill, 
As on my brow thy kisses fell 

Like snowflakes pure and chill. 

I heard thee lightly breathe my name, 

And while I strove to rise, 
Upon me dawned a starry flame — 

The splendor of thine eyes. 

And I was blest; the lucid world 
Kindled with song and bloom-^ 

Till sudden storms about me whirled ; 
Down crashed the ancient doom. 

I woke — to know thou still dost keep, 

While weary years pass by, 
Somewhere thy long and hallowed sleep 

Beneath a distant sky. 

For me alone the broken rest, 
Waste dreams that come and pass ; 

For thee the calm untroubled breast, 
Strange flowers, and alien grass. 



63 



THE RECONCILIATION 
(An Idyl of St. Martin's Summer) 

PHYLLIS and I fell out one day, 
Fell out as lovers do, 
Yet why it was I could not say, 

Nor do I think she knew. 
Slow dragged the days down dreary ways ; 

Birds hushed their happy cries ; 
Till autumn touched to sudden blaze 

The world with frosty dyes, 
And in a glory, brief and bright, 

Saint Martin's summer came, 
Fringing the hills with purple light 

And the shorn fields with flame. 
Then once again we met; her face, 

Her downcast, clouded eye, 
Turned from me as with quickened pace 

In silence she passed by. 
Upon the path her swift feet spurned 

A tiny glove of gray 
Fell with a pleading palm upturned — 

I saw it where it lay. 
With wildly fluttering heart I spoke; 

Her hurrying footsteps stayed, 
While on her lips a smile awoke, 

As sunshine scatters shade. 
"Come, Phyllis," said I, "let us cease, 

An age of joy we've missed"; 



64 



Said she, "Well, I have wanted peace 
This long time," and we kissed. 

Now oft, as in my wife's dear eyes 
I see fond whimsies blent, 

That dropped glove stirs a vague surmise- 
Was it an accident? 



ABANDONED 

O'ER the waste fields I hear the fancied sound 
Of children's voices — laughter and shrill calls; 
Sweetly their clear and childish treble falls 
Upon the evening ; bare feet sun-embrowned, 
Bright eyes and eager faces, cluster round 

'Mid deepening twilight, while the vine-grown walls 
Smile back the sunset, and the brooklet brawls 
Along its shallows from the pasture-ground. 
Once more creaks slowly by the laden wain ; 

Swallows on slanted wings are wheeling low 
About the eaves ; hints of warm summer rain 

Breathe in the air, and the long shadows grow; 
But here the children ne'er troop home again 
Through gathering dusk, as in the long-ago. 



65 



A MODERN ORPHEUS 

DULL-EYED he treads the city street 
Where tides of traffic part and meet 
His barrel-organ's iterant strain 
He scarcely hears ; in every vein 
Is deadly weariness ; his soul, 
As waves of languor o'er it roll, 
In noise and heat and dust is drowned; 
Yet on he plods his daily round, 
So strong are wonted uses still 
To bind the motions of the will. 
But suddenly he stops, aware 
Of some sweet fragrance in the air, 
Elusive, faint. . . . As in a dream, 
Again he watches by a stream 
Whose cool bright waters smoothly flow 
Betwixt green banks where violets grow. 
Then, while his flock about him feeds, 
He gathers from a bed of reeds 
An emerald pipe wherefrom to woo 
A music rare as Orpheus knew. 
The vision fades — by yon grim wall 
He sees a flower-vender's stall, 
And hears the loud insistent cry, 
"Fresh violets ! who'll buy ! who'll buy !" 



66 



TWO LIVES 

ONCE— only once — she listened to the voice 
Of the arch-tempter; tender was her heart, 
And wiles of sin to her young maidenhood 
Were all unknown; her weak defenses broke, 
And then her world crashed round her. Argus-eyes 
Thronged all the highways, and the hedges swarmed 
With Peeping Toms ; so with her shame she fled 
Into the desert place to shrive her soul. 
And there she dwelt obscurely, giving up 
Her nights and days to prayer. Cleanly she lived, 
Cleanly she wrought. The fresh young morning sang 
Tidings to her of healing, and the dusk, 
Cool-bosomed, pure, breathed messages of peace. 
Thus slipped the years away; forgot of men, 
Austere and sweet, she walked on life's high slopes 
Alone with God. 

Another woman dwelt 
In splendor where the great city's endless streets 
Throb with the clamor of their myriad life. 
And she was fair, with eyes like midnight stars, 
And jewels blazed upon her smooth white throat, 
And her rich garments rustled as she moved, 
But evil, like a serpent, all unseen, 
Coiled at her feet, and when with venomed fangs 
It struck, struck in the dark. And so the world, 
Unwitting, courted her with flattering words, 
And in her presence bowed obsequiously. 
Like a proud queen, enriching with a smile, 
Dishonoring with a frown, imperiously 

She swayed her realm. The victims of her lust 
67 



Crept silently away to hide their hurts, 
And made no sign. Haughtily still she rules, 
Glutting desire in secret; fools still fawn 
Upon her; still her beauty dazzles all, 
But, deep within, her soul is black as death. 



AUGUST 

SHE sits within the shadow of the vine, 
A swart young gypsy queen with turbaned head ; 
About her knees her dusky hands are spread ; 
Her somber eyes with inward ardors shine. 
The woodbine leaves already glow like wine ; 

The parched blooms droop above their dusty bed 
And still she sits, as one among the dead, 
And o'er the mown fields stares and makes no sign. 
An alien from a torrid clime, she knows 
Full well her empery is brief, and soon 
Where the shrunk stream amid its pebbles flows, 

And the cicada's challenge stabs the noon, 
Winter by night shall pile its drifting snows, 
And the frore North chant loud his icy rune. 



68 



THE ENIGMA 

A BABE born in a hovel, 'mid the reek 
Of pestilent vapors, and the sordid strife 
For daily food, scarce knew a mother's care. 
And when the little feet had learned to walk 
In the foul sunless alley where she dwelt, 
Early the dreadful wisdom of the poor 
Darkened her childhood, robbing it of joy. 
Yet deep within her soul some secret spring 
Of heavenly aspiration moved her life 
To struggle; with the years her strength increased; 
Slowly from out that squalor she emerged, 
Grew gracious in sweet ministries, and was blest 
With love and honor and the praise of men. 

That selfsame day another babe was born 

The heir of wealth; nurtured in luxury, 

Watched and defended, crowned with loveliness, — 

The world its homage laid before her feet. 

Then suddenly she lost her fair estate, 

From her high pedestal slipped once, and fell 

Into the vortex, while the worlds' black scorn 

Closed over her forever. Now she dwells 

In the foul sunless alley, 'mid the reek 

Of pestilent vapors, and from hour to hour, 

Lost and undone, craves but a single boon — 

To quaff some dark cup of forgetfulness. 



69 



THE ECLIPSE 
(A Man's Protest) 

GLADLY my soul before the pictured Christ 
Above the sacred altar would have knelt 
In adoration, knowing it sufficed 
Only to look on that sad face, to melt 
The iron barriers of sin and pride, 
And all the heart's fast-bolted doors swing wide. 

Thus while the organ's diapason rolled 

Through shadowy arch and nave, each wandering 
thought, 
Each vain desire, each impulse harsh and cold, 
Might into swift subjection have been brought; 
And silent prayers, breathed from the burdened 

breast, 
Have won from heaven the balm of peace and rest. 

Alas, in vain ! the minster's hallowed shrine, 

The storied windows' tints, the chanting choir, 
Uplifted not; for she, with eyes divine, 
Whose downcast lids half quenched their lambent fire, 
Worshipped and sang; while I, stark sinner, sat 
Eclipsed behind her all obscuring hat. 



70 



QUATRAINS 

SQUANDERED 

NOT the grim warder of the ebon gate 
Wakes sorrow in the dateless realm of night, 
But the black memory that it is too late 
To win again the squandered hours of light. 

THE DERELICT 

A WAN moon sinks behind low-hanging clouds ; 
The dark waste whispers in unquiet sleep 
Where, dim and sinister, with rotting shrouds, 
An ooze-stained hulk rolls heavily on the deep. 

JOHN DAVIDSON 

HE walked unheeded mid the motley throng; 
He sang betimes, but none would give him ear; 
Death, passing, touched his lips and hushed his song, 
When lo ! too late the world awoke to hear. 

THYSELF 

FIND thine own voice and utter thine own heart ; 
Be thine own prophet of the misty years ; 
Be more of nature thine and less of art; 
Keep sweet the fount of laughter and of tears. 

HYMN FOR THE EMPIRE STATE 

O EMPIRE of the pastoral hills, 
Of prosperous fields and winding streams, 
Of fruitful slopes and flashing rills, 
Thy rich and ample bosom teems 



With generous stores of corn and wine, 
Bestowments of the Hand Divine. 

'Mid happy vales thy lakes lie pearled ; 

Like children, cities crowd thy knees ; 
Thy smoky banners are unfurled 

Each morn to those vast symphonies 
Of forge and anvil where still ply 
The hammers of thine industry. 

Thy punctual harvests shall not cease ; 

Thy rivers never shall run dry; 
On thee shall fall the dews of peace 

From evening's hushed, impartial sky, 
To plenish still thy patient soil, 
And bless the hands of honest toil. 

And lo ! the world brings to thy feet 
Its wealth o'er multitudinous seas ; 

Within thy council chambers meet 
Sovereigns and powers and dignities ; 

Yet not of these thy state is won, 

But of thine every worthy son. 

May justice rule within thy halls; 

Redress be thine for every wrong ; 
Love dwell within thy humblest walls ; 

The weak be girded by the strong ; 
So shalt thou bear without a stain 
The scutcheon of thy proud domain. 

72 



AT THE SIGN OF THE HEART 



WIZARDRY 

DEW in the heart of the rose — 
Spirit of lambent fire — 
Breath of the wind that blows — 
Voice of the Spring's desire — 
Soul of the song that thrills 

With rapture through earth and sea — 
Light of the dawn on the darkling hills- 
Such is my love to me. 

Blithe are her feet that fall, 

Quickening the tender grass — 
Sweet are her lips that call 

As the music of streams that pass ; 
The sum of the world's delight 

In all fair things that be — 
Star of the mariner's longing sight — 

Such is my love to me. 



75 



THE LATE COMER 

BE glad that love hath come to thee and me, 
Beloved, tardy comer though he is; 
Dearer to me this rare autumnal bliss 
Than all the Spring's precarious grace could be. 
What were life's triumphs, never more to see 
Love's splendor burn in other eyes — to miss 
The rapturous wonder when love's first warm kiss 
Dews the soft lips surrendered trustingly. 
Dear, in deep shadows I so long have lain 

That I am avid of the smallest ray 
Foretelling love's great glory dawns again 

To bless my life, ere evening, chill and gray, 
Quenches the vital spark in heart and brain ; 
O star of hope, lead in the fuller day! 



76 



SOMETIME— SOMEWHERE 

SOMETIME, sometime — ah, let not hope abate 
Her vestal flame — when past the cloudy night, 

My soul shall stand revealed in clearer light, 
Wilt thou not set ajar thy heart's closed gate? 
No storm-tossed bird e'er sought its nested mate, 

All spent and weary from its anxious flight, 

More eagerly than I, through drouth and blight, 
Toil towards love's shrine, withdrawn, inviolate. 
Some guerdon somewhere surely there must be, 

Some cool oasis in the desert sands, 
Some peaceful haven past the homeless sea, 

For the worn pilgrim from unsmiling lands ; — 
O thou where Elim's palms and fountains be, 

To thee I lift faint eyes and suppliant hands. 



77 



WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE 

THERE is a land where light winds blow 
From sun-crowned hills of long ago — 
A land of morning fresh and sweet, 
Where youth returns on flying feet ; 
Where memory smiles through happy tears, 
And age forgets its weight of years; 
Where withered roses bloom once more, 
And faded eyes beam as of yore. 
Ah ! would that we might find the clue, 
And win the realm where dreams come true ; 
Ay, find the joy we never knew, 
Where dreams come true, where dreams come true. 

There still love's whispered tale is told; 

Hope spreads o'er earth her cloth-of-gold; 

Fond, tremulous vows again are heard, 

The answering, shy, half-spoken word; 

While to the tender, brooding skies 

Forget-me-nots lift dewy eyes, 

And round the glad world, all day long, 

Delight thrills on the wings of song. 

O loved one, may I dwell with you 

In that dear realm where dreams come true ; 

Ay, find the joy we never knew 

Where happy dreams at last come true. 



78 



THE ANSWER 

WHY do I love thee? — ask, when night is done, 
Why morning dawns ; ask any flower that blows, 

Why from its dewy heart the perfume flows 
When zephyrs woo ; ask why the gossamers, spun 
By faery hands ere moonlit hours are run, 

Shake all their threaded tears if but the rose 

Stir in its dreams ; ask why green buds unclose 
Their tender bosoms to the quickening sun. 
Ah, who shall fathom life's old mysteries, 

Or read the ancient riddle of the heart? 
But this I know — whene'er thy gentle eyes 

Look into mine, along my pulses start 
Strange melodies, and I see thy soul that lies, 

Virgin and white, in its own place apart. 



79 



THE FLEDGELING 

DEAR, in the secret, sheltered nest 
Still let love's timid fledgeling lie, 
While softly in the violet west 
The vernal sunsets die. 

For, haply, on some golden morn, 

When shadows ripple o'er the wheat, 

And midges wind an elfin horn, 
And summer airs blow sweet, 

Its throat shall thrill with ecstasy, 
Whilst thou, 'mid screening leaves apart, 

Shalt hear in that wild minstrelsy 
Echoes of thine own heart. 

RECOGNITION 

THOUGH I shall find thee robed in white, 
And on thy brow, pure and serene, 
A beauty more divinely bright 
Than earth hath ever seen ; 

And though I dumbly strive to trace 
The sweet, worn human lines again 

Within thy changed, seraphic face, 
But strive, alas ! in vain ; 

Thy voice shall wake the ancient thrill. 

And through thy radiant disguise 
I shall behold the old love still 

Deep burning in thine eyes. 
80 



LOVE'S RENASCENCE 

DEAR LOVE, I love you as the flowers the dew, 
As the parched desert loves the healing rain, 
As tear-worn eyes soft slumber after pain, 
As winter-prisoned buds the vernal blue. 
My soul's deep tides all move and meet in you. 

The slackened lutestrings that so long have lain 
Unswept, forgotten, dumb, now wake again 
To thrill with ecstasies which once they knew. 
For you to me are life and warmth and sun ; 

The naked boughs with bloom are clothed once more ; 
Like pearls, love's dear bestowments, one by one, 

I hoard away within my heart, a store 
Of treasured sweets where treasure there was none, 
And all my world grows opulent as of yore. 



81 



THE VERNAL CALL 

COME, dearest, it is time to go, 
The crimson buds are calling; 
The south-wind whispers sweet and low; 

The slender streams are falling 
From slope to slope with bells of foam 

Upon their dimpled bosoms, 

And twinkling feet already roam 

Amid the springing blossoms. 

Come, dearest, for the vernal breath 

Within our hearts is waking ; 
Loosed are the frigid bands of death ; 

The year's young day is breaking. 
The happy birds from bough to bough 

To find their mates are winging; 
O love, our springtime, too, is now, 

And youth returns with singing. 

VALE 

LET us forget, my heart, let us forget 
That old sweet day when summer skies were blue 
And that one hour, caught in noon's golden net, 
When all the world seemed kind, and love was new 

Now other skies are o'er us ; love, denied, 

Casts one sad, backward glance to that drear place 

Where Faith, grown weary, fainted, and Hope died, 
Hiding in dust her unregarded face. 



S2 



THE WHISPERED WORD 

OUNFORGOTTEN day, return ! 
Bring back thine opal skies, 
And far-sown dews that wink and burn 
Where morning's magic lies 

On grassy slopes and meadows pied 
With slender bluets starry-eyed. 

For there, by waters slipping down 

Past coverts cool and green, 
'Mid birchen shoots and thickets brown, 
With sunny isles between, 

Sweeter than whitethroat's strain, I heard 
The music of a whispered word. 

And suddenly the world was bright 
With bloom, and pulsing wings, 
All blue and gold, flashed through the light, 
While tender growing things, 

From moist dim nook and leafy tent, 
The fresh wild breath of spring outsent. 

Still in the old loved haunt I dream ; 

Hushed are the ritournels 
Of mating birds, and the choked stream 
Muffles its silver bells ; 
Yet all my soul to song is stirred 
By memory of that whispered word. 



83 



TOWARDS THE SUNSET 



'^ I ^IS high noon still — how swiftly will it pass, 
-*- And backward-creeping shadows slowly fall 
O'er the long slope, while crickets pipe and call 

From lonely twilight coverts of the grass ; — 

High noon o'er steep and valley, but alas ! 
Time ne'er will furl for one brief interval 
His tireless pinions, nor yet stay the small 

Still sands, like years, down slipping in his glass. 

Hasten thy footsteps, dear; love's darkling bower 
Shall with thy coming into music break ; 

At evening thy bright presence shall have power 
To sow the vesper dusk with many a flake 

Of pulsing fire. Oh, from each veiled hour 
Let us with tremulous joy its largess take. 



S4 



II 

Beyond the opal-hearted west the day 

Still smiles upon the world ; each soaring steep 
Is clothed with splendor, and cloud-vistas keep 

Pale lilac-tinted headlands dashed with spray 

From pearly seas that round them roll away; 
Yet even now, beyond the fulgent deep, 
The cohorts of the dark begin to creep 

From umbered lairs like hungry beasts of prey. 

O priestess of the heart, is the flame cold 
At which a worn and homesick votary 

Would fain find some late cheer? — and now, behold! 
I wait to hear thy summons unto me, 

Bidding me enter in, ere I am old, 
To know at last love's sacred ministry. 



85 



THE FIRST TRYST 

WITHIN the whispering shadows of the night, 
Where the gray dunes show wan against the sky, 
And the long roller curls its yellow foam 
Above half-strangled sands, he stands at gaze. 
His heart is sick with doubt, and painfully 
His ear is bent to catch the hushed sweet noise 
Of light feet hastening towards him; sudden fears 
Clutch at his throat, and fancy, chilled and weak, 
Plagues him with nameless pangs ; there in the dark 
One big star burns like an unwinking eye, 
Mocking his vigil; somewhere, far away, 
A dog bays maddeningly, and all his soul 
Hangs on the torture of that instant when 
From the dim tower the bell's first note shall boom 
Its brazen signal ; hollow winds arise, 
Mingled of flame and frost; hope flickers low, 
As falls the breathless moment; till at last 
The long-awaited stroke which, ere it dies, 
Shudders into a little sound of joy. 
Then outstretched hands that glimmer through the 

dusk, 
Pale robes that flutter near, a happy cry 
Quenched in a tremulous sob — and all is well. 



DIVIDED 

A LITTLE while, ah ! yet a little while 
As Time's swift shuttle plies, and I shall be 

With thee at last but a wan memory 
Too dim and fugitive for tear or smile. 
But I shall see thee in the woodland aisle, 

In the white clouds piled o'er the heaving sea, 

In the far mountain's blue immensity, 
In sun-scorched city streets spread mile on mile. 
But haply, sometime, mid night's shadowy gleams, 

Across uncharted leagues, from unknown lands, 
Though 'twixt us roll the tides of countless streams, 

And like an ocean stretch the desert sands, 
Thou shalt behold me in unwilling dreams, 

With eyes of sorrow and beseeching hands. 



HER RETURNING 

THROUGH the long hours I dreamed of pain 
Within my heavy ears 
My pulses thundered, and my brain 
Was sick with nameless fears. 

Then suddenly the morning broke; 

The desolate night was o'er; 
And lo! I saw thee, as I woke, 

Stand smiling at the door. 



87 



DISINHERITED 

I BUILT my life in thee; in that dear nest 
Hope carolled o'er her fledglings day by day, 

Bodeless of hours when they should fly away, 
And leave bereaved and lorn her gentle breast. 
My sunlight was thy smile, and I was blest; 

Till round the rose-strewn path where I did stray 

Gathered unhallowed vapors, chill and gray, 
And ominous clouds frowned from the darkened west. 
But now I know not, oh ! I know not, where 

The wild fresh beauty of our morn hath fled; 
The world, grown aged, is no longer fair ; 

The dewless petals of the rose are shed; 
Love lies discrowned and dumb — he that was heir 

Of all our dreams — and dust is on his head. 



ANTIPHONAL 

HE 

OFOND and true, O perfect love, 
In whom my pulses ebb and flow, 
About thy path the kind stars move; 

Peace round thee breathes where thou dost go. 

SHE 

And thou, dear heart, shalt be to me 
As sun to flower; through thy wide arc 

My grateful soul shall follow thee 
From dewy morn to perfumed dark. 

BOTH 

O rapturous days ! O ecstasy J 
Of love's delights what tongue may tell? 

Time stays its flight for thee and me, 
Time stays its flight, and all is well. 

O BREATH OF THE GOLDEN DAY 

O BREATH of the golden day, blow free; 
Blow out of the opal west; 
Blow thou a token or sign to me, 

To hush my heart's unrest; 
O bring from the far-off sunset sea 
Some message of love confest. 

O breath of the dawn-lit dusk, I wait ; 

Blow down from the hills of myrrh; 
The bird now wakens his nested mate ; 

The dreaming roseleaves stir; 
O haste, for the weary night grows late; 

Bring one dear word from her. 

89 



VALLEY-BORN 

"For love is of the valley" 

LOVE in the darkened valley keeps the hearth-fire 
bright, 
Where the vine-grown latticed cottage nestles beside 
the lane; 
'Mid gathering mists and shadows her lamp gleams 
through the night, 
And gentle eyes watch hour by hour behind the wink- 
ing pane. 

Love in the watered valley prepares her simple board, 

Laden with oaten cakes and honey amber-clear, 
And haply a cruse of wine from autumn's vintage 
poured, 
When the oozing vats dripped nectar in the harvest 
of the year. 

Love in the quiet valley frets not for soaring wings ; 
Hers are the vision and dream mid life's small homely 
tasks ; 
A lullaby crooned in the twilight, a cradle that lightly 
swings, 
And a homeward-faring footstep — ah! nothing more 
she asks. 

Love in the verdant valley plights happy troth, nor seeks 
To stanch on the arid heights the ache of a lonely 
life; 

90 



She mounts no perilous paths towards the barren, home- 
less peaks, 
Where warm breasts hover no dear brood, nor glad 
lips whisper "wife." 



UNFORGOTTEN 

OLOST one, though the long years still divide 
Our onward paths, we ne'er shall wholly part, 
For vestal Memory, at her altar-side, 

Shall feed the sacred flame within my heart. 

And all fair things that come to me the while — 
The flush of dawn, the twilight-damasked skies — 

Bring back again the sunlight of your smile, 
The deathless wonder of your star-like eyes. 

Yet, sometimes, when the night is on the land, 
And barren fields with wintry rains are wet, 

I hunger for the warm touch of your hand, 
And all my soul awakes to wild regret. 



91 



FULFILLMENT 

SOMEWHERE beyond the mete of time, 
And the last morrow's ken, 
Where morn shall blaze, as in its prime, 
Ere seen by eyes of men — 

Where spirit from the bond of flesh 

Shall be forever free, 
Our happy feet shall walk the fresh 

Sweet ways of mystery. 

We twain shall wander hand in hand, 
Where suns and planets cease, 

And in that Presence come to stand 
Whose perfect name is Peace. 

And there, upon that utmost height, 
Down which strange splendors pour, 

Our souls shall mingle in the light — 
One, one forevermore. 

And I shall fold thee to my side, 
And thou at length shalt know 

The love I bore thee, O my bride. 
In the dim long ago. 

Nor shall thy pureness feel offense. 

As in those human years 
When, through the weary veil of sense, 

I breathed the speech of tears. 



92 



And thou in thy white loveliness, 

And I released from strife, 
Shall learn how, out of storm and stress, 

Is won the gift of life. 



AT SUNSET 

LOVE came across the meadows 
At the dawning of the day; 
Before him fled the shadows, 

Past the mountains, far away; 
Love came, a dear, unbidden guest; 
The mated bird sang by its nest ; 
While morning caroled in my breast, 
And Oh, the joy of living! 

Love came across the meadows 
At the dawning of the day, 

But left me in the shadows 
When night fell, cold and gray; 

He fled, the false and fickle guest ; 

The bird drooped by the empty nest; 

The evening chilled my lonely breast, 
And Oh, the woe of living! 



93 



ALL BEAUTEOUS THINGS 

ALL beauteous things meet in the wondrous deep 
Of her dark eyes — cool dawns and orange eves, 

And flutterings of green wind-lifted leaves 
On noon-tide slopes where summer lies asleep; 
There, mirrored, are the streams that downward leap 

To die in mist ; and there the dream that weaves 

Its midnight spell about her and retrieves 
Her spirit from the cares day hath in keep. 
Plead for me, O my verse, breathe all my love 

Into her heart — dear heart that I would fain 
Shelter against my own ; and I would prove, 

Through all the years to be, that not in vain 
To crown her life with blessedness I strove, 

Or sought to shield her gentle soul from pain. 



94 



FOR THINE OWN SAKE 

WITHIN thy voice I hear another voice, 
Not sweeter than thine own; and thy dear eyes 
Are tender as the shadows that rejoice 

The hushed, glad world when evening dusks the 
skies. 

The touch of thy white hand awakes in me 
The ancient thrill; and that warm clasp of thine 

Is sweeter far than the chill memory 
Of fingers ne'er responsive unto mine. 

For thine own sake, and not another's, I 
Find music in thy presence; and I feel, 

When to thy gentle spirit I draw nigh, 
A sense of infinite beauty o'er me steal. 

And on the hunger of my heart there fall 
Soft comfortings; and, whatsoe'er be past, 

When to thy soul my own fond soul shall call, 
Thou too shalt speak and I shall hold thee fast. 



95 



SONG 

THE names which from my heart uprise, 
Whene'er I think of thee, 
Throb, like the dusk of star-lit skies, 
With ceaseless melody; 

Names which 'twere past a mortal's skill 

To say or sing aright, 
But which bright spirits breathe and thrill 

The raptured ear of night. 

HER COMING 

LIGHT on the hilltops, dew on the clover ; 
Dawn, and a song in the air ; 
Gold of the buttercups half the world over, 

And gold in the sheen of her hair ; 
She's coming, she's coming, her footsteps are shaking 

The gossamer spun from the thorn ; 
She's coming, O heart, and the flowers are waking; 
She's coming and bringing the morn. 

Splendor on far peaks, dusk in the valleys ; 

O wonder and joy of the day! 
Mid opaline shadows the brooklet outsallies ; 

The nest is a-swing on the spray ; 
She's coming, she's coming, her sandals are gleaming 

Along the waste places of night ; 
She's coming to waken my soul from its dreaming 

And drench the new world with delight. 
96 



HER LOVELINESS 

HER loveliness makes music in my soul; — 
A lily in the dew ; a rose at morn 

When the wind ripples o'er the golden corn; 
Streams that between the dappled meadows roll 
Their shining length; bells that at evening toll 

Their silver vespers; bees that wind their horn 

Through noonday quests ; and, when the stars are born, 
Late birds swift winging towards their nested goal — 
All these wake not within my prescient heart 

So much of joy as when, her gentle eyes 
Upraised to mine making my pulses start, 

I fJch from their pure deeps some sweet surprise, 
And of all beauty feel that she is part — 

Beauty of night and dawn, of earth and skies. 



THE tPARADOX 

AH, had I known the sorrow and unrest, 
The wild desires and vain imaginings, 
The wished-for good no morrow ever brings, 
The days of dolor and the nights unblest; 
Yea, had I known how from my life the zest 
Should vanish as the dwindled water-springs ; 
How hope, grown hopeless, with dishevelled wings 
Low trailing, should surcease her futile quest — 



97 



I would have loved thee still, because I must; 

For in thy voice I hear the prescient call 
Of homing birds borne down the wintry gust, 

With breath of hyacinthine buds, and all 
The music of clear streams, while ev'n the dust 

Breaks into bloom where'er thy light feet fall. 

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER 

MORE life, more love! O buds that swell in 
spring, 
And riotous birds that through the orchards wing, 
And sweet small violets in the hollows lone, 
And vernal breaths o'er crinkling waters blown, 
And federate trees with mounting sap tides rife, 
Ye plead one wild desire : "More life, more life !" 

More life, more love! Ah, little lyric throats, 

And sun-bright leaves, deep grass, and glancing motes, 

And pastoral bees at day-long sylvan tasks, 

And pungent herb that in the midnoon basks, 

And household vines that screen the nesting dove, 

Ye lift one poignant cry: "More love, more love!" 



9S 



CATHEDRAL AISLES 



HIS EARTHLY COURTS 

HERE, as the seasons come and pass, 
Hope shall uplift her radiant face, 
And sweet as dew on parched grass 
Shall fall God's plenteous grace. 

Here hearts, grown weary in the strife 
Where trade her noisy mart uprears, 

Shall quaff again the peace of life 
And rest them from their fears. 

The silvern crown of age shall bow 
Beside the golden head of youth, 

And at this altar breathe the vow 
That seals them heirs of truth. 

And happy songs shall here outring 
From lips that thrill with praises meet; 

Her treasures Love shall hither bring 
To lay them at His feet. 

Blest Church of God! Dear Master, take 
Our simple offerings, small and poor, 

And while the decades roll, O make 
This temple to endure. 

Of those the Father gave to Thee, 
Thou sovereign Lord, may none be lost ; 

Thus shall our children's children see 
Faith's unimagined host. 



101 



THE SHELTERING CARE 

THY spirit, Lord, is on the unquiet deep ; 
Beyond its utmost metes, which Thou hast set, 
It may not pass; though billows foam and rage, 
And bellowing winds from the tumultuous gloom 
Smite the tormented bark, still doth Thy hand 
In its wide compass hold the tameless seas 
And granite-rooted hills ; nor may the floods 
That gnash their bodeful fangs round palm-girt isles 
Move from its fostering bed one tranced seed 
That yet shall wake to lift to prosperous skies 
Its swaying fronds. O Eye that slumbers not, 
O Heart whose tender vigil never ends, 
Teach me that in the circuit of Thy love 
Tempests shall bring undoing unto none, 
Even the least of those, whose helplessness 
Nestles within Thy bosom's cherishing. 
When thunder peals and the stunned heavens split 
From side to side, and fiery bolts descend 
Full charged with sudden doom, what time the black 
Waste midnight shudders into denser night, 
Somewhere the light lies still on breathing flowers, 
And soft airs stir the violets in green dells, 
And birds with pulsing throats break into song 
Above the cradled nests. Somewhere the dew 
Falls cool on peaceful meadows, and the kine, 
Ruminant with content, lie calmly couched 
By pasture bars ; and all along the vale 
Home lights begin to twinkle, and a sound 
Mellow and hushed steals through the scented dusk— 

102 



A lullaby crooned o'er a drowsy babe. 

Lord, whatsoe'er Thou shalt appoint for me, 

Or calm or storm, O let me not forget 

The world is Thine, and all is well to him 

Who trusts Thy patient care. Afar or near, 

In dark or light, no hurt shall come to me, 

For that my times are in Thy guardian hand, 

And by my path Thy warders wait: at whiles, 

To me in starry moments there shall come 

Low murmurings of celestial voices, borne 

On perfumed winds whence deathless summer breaks 

Its surf of blossoms round my Father's door. 



103 



AS A LITTLE CHILD 

TO feel the freshness of the opening year; 
The joy of swelling buds and springing grass 
To see the flame-like crocus lift its spear; 

To trace God's footsteps shining where they pass; 

To know that heaven is never far away, 

Nor lose the open vision of the soul; 
To walk 'mid common wonders day by day, 

And read the cryptic signs on nature's scroll; 

To watch the lyric seasons come and go ; 

The flickering leaf, the fern's uncurling fronds ; 
The delicate star-shaped crystals of the snow ; 

The crinkling stream, the osier's slender wands ; 

The yellow bee with pollen-dusted thighs ; 

The lily with the dewdrop in its breast ; 
The nascent splendor of the morning skies; 

The evening purpling in the solemn west ; 

Yea, still to find the old world sweet and fair, 
To move 'mid ancient evils undefiled, 

With eye un jaundiced by deceit and care, 
Keep me, O Father, as a little child. 



104 



ELIM 

And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of 
water, and three-score and ten palm trees. — Ex. xv. 27. 

OELIM, I have sought thee long with tears ; 
Over the weary desert, day by day, 
I've reeled and stumbled, and the sands have parched 
My withered flesh. Along the dunes I drag 
My leaden feet, and all the dewless skies 
Are void of hope or succor. Oft afar 
Thy palms have lured me onward, but at last 
Have vanished from my sight. At whiles my ears 
Have caught the murmur of thy falling streams, 
Like music heard in sleep, only to die 
In silence as I listened. Yet, ah yet, 
I know that somewhere lies thy cooling shade 
On tender sward, and flowers nod and smile 
In sheltered hollows, and the breath of night 
Is sweet with perfume. O thou Guiding Hand, 
Wilt thou not bring me thither, ere my strength 
Be wholly spent? So shall I come and drink 
Of those clear wells whereof my lips are fain, 
And lay my burden down, remembering 
In the hushed, glad fulfillment of that hour, 
No word of Thine e'er lapsed, no promise failed. 



105 



THE STRENGTH OF THE HILLS IS HIS ALSO 

TAKE thou, O Lord, thy meed of praise ; 
Life still is good to me; 
Beneath the steadfast stars I raise 
My tranquil face to thee. 

I thank thee for the unwasting strength 

Of the age-rooted hills, 
Down whose ribbed ledges foams the length 

Of the rock-tumbled rills ; 

For the long sun-steeped summer hours ; 

The voiceless hush of noon ; 
The deep still nights when dew-tranced flowers 

Lie wet beneath the moon. 

I thank thee for the various life 

In cloud and stream and grass — 
The frog's bassoon, the cricket's fife, 

The flutes of birds that pass; 

For the gray mists whose streamers weave, 

Above the soaring woods, 
Thin airy shapes of vans that cleave 

The upper solitudes. 

My grateful heart accepts the past. 

Its sorrow, tears and scorn. 
The burden sore grown light at last. 

The long-belated morn. 
106 



And so my soul adventures far, 

Through pathways wild and sweet, 
To come where thine high altars are, 

And worship at thy feet. 

A MORNING ORISON 

SOMEWHERE the morning breaks ; the crescent light 
Floods all the valleys with an aureate stream ; 
A glory lies on the unpeopled height ; — 
O Lord, on me let thine effulgence beam. 

Now from the leafy privacies outrings 
The concord of the feathered minstrelsy; — 

Oh, may my being's praise, like smitten strings, 
Tremble, dear Lord, in music up to thee. 

From the veined cups of the awakened flowers 
Rises a dewy perfume, sweet and rare; — 

Lord, let my spirit's unconjectured powers 
Breathe upward to thee daily like a prayer. 

The thrifty bee, already on its quest, 

Seeks to and fro some nectared treasure-trove; — 
Lord, in the inviolate chambers of my breast 

Garner a harvest of unstinting love. 

Oh, while the young day brightens o'er the earth, 
And smiling peace infolds the happy land, 

Let faith in every bosom find its birth, 
And hope and charity go hand in hand. 

107 



COMPENSATION 

ROUND each far peak, 
Austere and bleak, 
Snow-laden clouds are hanging; 
The long white fields are dumb with frost where rang 
the whetted scythe; 
O'er ice-bound brooks, 
In leafless nooks, 
Sweeps by with cymbals clanging 
The charging blast, while all the wind-tossed branches, 
clash and writhe. 

But somewhere breathe, 
Through vines that wreathe 
The aisles with starry blossoms, 
Sweet airs that stir the sleeping pools and kiss the 
drowsy flowers ; 
There safe at rest, 
In each soft nest, 
Are huddled tiny bosoms, 
While o'er the moss sift flickering gules of sunlight 
through calm hours. 

Look up, O soul ! 
Though o'er thee roll 
Long days of clouds and shadows, 
And through dark months of mist and gloom no golden 
rays outstream, 



108 



Yet light shall rise 
To glad thine eyes, 
Like sunshine on green meadows, 
When bursts from out its wintry grave the splendor 
of thy dream. 



ICHABOD 

THE glory is departed — imminent night 
Wraps her dusk vans about the mountains gray, 

Where late the smouldering embers of the day 
Glowed with a solemn and foreboding light: 
Thus summer's pageant dies upon the sight 

Thus autumn's tragic flush dissolves away; 

Thus the dear dreams we fain would keep for aye 
Are startled into unreturning flight. 
O maimed and stricken life ! — the lyric bloom 

And dewy freshness — shall these never be 
Thy portion more? Drowned in the midnight gloom, 

Shalt ne'er again some radiant vision see? 
Courage! behind the sullen peaks of doom, 

Somewhere God's kindling splendor dawns for thee. 



109 



RAIN ON THE SEA 

IT needs not, Lord, that thy full hand should pour 
This bounty of the sweet and cooling rain 

Upon the brimming ocean's sterile plain, 
When for one little portion of this store 
Somewhere the famished earth prays o'er and o'er ; 

Why shouldst thou cast this largess thus in vain 

To melt into the wide and barren main, 
When the long drouth lays waste the teeming shore? 
Forgive us, Lord, that in thine ear is shrilled 

The futile challenge of our childish "why" ; 
Haply the clouds thy mercy have distilled 

On the great deep that, where wrecked seamen lie 
Haggard and spent and with night-watches chilled, 

Of thirst on their frail raft they should not die. 



110 



BEYOND THE MERIDIAN 

A LITTLE rest, a little rest, O God! 
Ere the long darkness shuts me from the day, 

Let me have time to see the morning lay 
Her lavish gold upon the hills and, shod 
With purple, pass where vestal eve hath trod 

The starry lanes of midnight. I would stay 

A-near the cool and healing grass, and pray 
As prays the violet from the mossy sod, 
Taking the rain and sunshine as from Thee, 

Scarce conscious that it asks, but glad withal 
Simply to live. My tired soul would see 

Green buds and fritillaries, and would call 
For priest-like nature's benedicite, 

Ere death's eclipse upon mine eyelids fall. 



ill 



DAY BY DAY 

EACH day brings with it its own care, 
Some burden of desire or dread, 
Some thorny crown of pain to wear, 
Some new, strange path to tread. 

E'en while we sleep Time's secret loom 

Its busy, noiseless shuttle plies, 
To round us weave, through hours of gloom, 

Our various destinies. 

Yet each dark thread is mixed with light — 
Assured deliverance with distress, 

Weeping with laughter, wrong with right, 
And rest with weariness. 

For morn's diurnal bounty brings 

Its punctual good naught can destroy — 

Some flower that blooms, some bird that sings, 
Some sweet, fresh gift of joy. 



112 



LEARNED AT LAST 

"TVtS written that the earth is Thine, O Lord, 

-■- The fulness thereof also ; not a gnat, 
Whose little life spans but an hour, and craves 
The bounty of Thy sunshine, is denied. 
In unregarded places, where no eye 
Save Thine beholds, and where no voice is heard, 
Save delicate, small whispers of the air 
O'er dew-pearled flowers, or far off falling streams 
Waking elusive echoes in the vale — ■ 
Still there the largess of Thy hand pours forth 
To satisfy and gladden all that breathes. 
Then who are these whose armies shake the world? 
Who clutch the fateful lightnings in their hands, 
To hurl them forth with ruin and red death 
O'er desolated homes — the war lords, plumed 
And helmeted, whose thundering cannons lift 
Their smoky banners high. Is, then, the earth 
Their heritage, that they should seek to wrest 
From poverty its scanty rood of ground, 
Where patient toil still delves, or meekly waits 
When Thou dost hoar-frost give like ashes ? Lo ! 
Out of the tears and blood, the holocaust 
Of crushed and bleeding squadrons, trampled crowns, 
Wrecked empires and proud captains rolled in dust, 
The long, hard lesson shall be learned at last — 
"He hath put down the mighty from their seat, 
And hath exalted them of low degree." 



113 



"FOR SO HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP" 

NOT yet, my child, not yet the twilight falleth; 
Not yet the sun sinks in the darkling west; 
Not yet from the gray fields the cricket calleth ; 
Fold not thine hands, 'tis not yet time to rest. 

Still weary labor plies its ringing hammers ; 

Still the forge reddens and the wheels go round ; 
Still the thronged market lifts its deafening clamors, 

And iron hoofs of traffic smite the ground. 

At the stern task a little longer tarry; 

Mid sordid cares the vision sweet still keep ; 
The burden old a little longer carry; 

Then the night cometh with its healing sleep. 



114 



"AND THY SLEEP SHALL BE SWEET" 
Prov. Hi. 24. 

THE end draws nigh ; for this I thank Thee, Lord ; 
The goal at length makes glad my weary eyes ; 
Hushed are the old wild woes, the last vain word, 
Day's raucous cries. 

The evening comes, with soothing murmurs blent; 

I strove and failed ; now twilight whispers, "Rest" ; 
For me the cool grass spreads its shadowy tent, 

Earth opes her breast. 

Out of the lists I reel — and it is well; 

Vanished is pain, with joy that none can keep, 
While ancient night weaves o'er me her soft spell 

Of dreamless sleep. 

So let me lie, while seasons wax and wane, 
Careless alike of toil and toil's surcease, 

Unheeding winter's cold or summer's rain, 
Wrapped round with peace. 



115 



RECOMPENSE . 

TIME steals the damask from the rose, 
The wild, sweet freshness from the dawn; 
The night forgets to bring repose; 

From spring the rapture is withdrawn ; 
Hope's rainbow, seen of old through tears, 
No longer spans the flying years. 

Yet hath the heart its quiet dells 

Where Memory keeps her bowers green ; 

Where Peace abides, and Honor dwells, 
And faith is glad in things unseen; 

Where Love's warm afterglows still lurk. 

And Patience hath her perfect work. 



116 



THE DIVINE ASSURANCE 

MY child, seek not to understand, for now 
Thine eyes are holden, and thou canst not see 
The hand that guides ; I know the rugged way 
Up which thou toilest wearily and alone. 
The darkness shall not fright thee; I will keep 
Thy feet from fa 1 ling when thy dizzy sight 
Looks down the stark abyss ; the noonday sun 
Shall scorch thee not, for I will be thy shade. 
Out of the cloud I will speak unto thee 
When thy heart faileth and the bitter tears 
Are salt upon thy lips. Lo ! on my hands 
Thy name is graven, nor can I forget 
The thing that I have made ; yea, let this be 
Thine inmost comforting — that round thee lies 
The mystery of my love that cannot cease, 
The fulness of my power that cannot fail, 
My patience, boundless as eternity. 



117 



'AS RAIN ON THE MOWN GRASS" 

ON drooping lives He shall descend 
As on the mown grass fall the showers, 
Or as the healing dews by night 
Upon the thirsty flowers. 

The dreary desert shall rejoice; 

Our days, so profitless and vain, 
Shall bud and blossom with delight 

Beneath God's fruitful rain. 

Open thy windows, gracious Lord, 
On us the promised blessing pour, 

Till the parched gardens of our hearts 
Stream with thy love once more. 



118 



THE REST 

f fT^HERE remaineth therefore a rest 

-*■ To the people of God," it is said ; 
Make answer, O earth, is it in thy cool breast? 
O grave, do they rest who are dead? 

"There remaineth therefore a rest 

To the people of God" ; can it be 
Far under thy foam-white, wind-blown crest? 

Tell us, O restless sea ! 

"A rest to God's people" ; O Love ! 

O Christ, to Thy pitiful breast, 
Could we borrow the wings of the home-flying dove, 

We would haste and so enter our rest. 

Yea, soul ! "there remaineth a rest" ; 

So be it. The sweet lilies grow, 
And they toil not, they spin not, and yet they are blest 

Why fret we? God's people shall know. 



119 



SURRENDER 

LORD, I would bow my stricken head and say, 
"Thy will be done !" 
I know that o'er this same sad, weary way 

Thou, too, hast gone. 
Oh, where Thou leadest let me follow still, 
Through all this poor dim life of mine, until 
My sands be run. 

I have been smitten, but not from the ground 

My sorrows rose; 
Thou e'er hast balmed at length my deepest wound, 

And made my woes — 
Ah, passing strange! — like oil to cheer my head; 
For me, too, Thou a table oft hast spread 

Before my foes. 

Though Thou shouldst humble me unto the dust, 

Thy will be done ! 
Lo, take me, make me, break me — Thou art just, 

O Holy One ! 
On this marred clay Thine image stamp divine ; 
Rise through the night and on my darkness shine 

O Morning Sun ! 



120 



"YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ME" 

LORD, I was hungry, and Thou gav'st me meat; 
Yea, blessed Lord, to me Thou gavest wine, 
And corn, and oil, and bread whereof to eat, 
And madest me an honored guest of Thine. 

I was athirst, dear Lord, and Thou didst lead 
My footsteps whither cooling waters flow, 

Through many a shady wood and dewy mead, 
Where spicy winds from isles of morning blow. 

I was a stranger, Lord, footsore and sad, 
And weary with long journeys from far lands, 

But Thou didst take me in and make me glad, 
And lavedst my bruised feet with loving hands. 

Lord, I was naked and Thou clothedst me, 
As lilies are, in raiment pure and white ; 

Thou tookest from me shame and poverty, 
And didst exalt me in the people's sight. 

And I was sick, Lord, nigh consumed of sin, 
And all my life was vexed with heaviness 

And sharp distress, but Thou didst gently win 
My soul to health, and peace, and righteousness. 

In prison, Lord, I lay, but Thou didst come 
And soothe me as I languished day and night, 

Nor wast Thou grieved that my poor lips were dumb 
And could not tell my gratitude aright. 



121 



Ah, Thou wast ever better than my fears ! 

And though, for all Thy mercies, gracious Lord, 
I bring Thee now but empty hands and tears, 

Yet even these may gain love's sweet reward. 



HOMEWARD 

FOR what unguessed, late prize I strove so long, 
I know not ; lo ! my striving now is past ; 
For that the battle is not to the strong, 

Nor the race to the swift, I've learned at last. 

I know not whither winds the path I tread, 
Nor what the goal that I shall reach at length, 

When I no more shall eat this bitter bread, 

Nor quaff this cruse of tears, to nourish strength. 

Unto what purpose have I bared my arms 

For tasks that grew more irksome day by day, 

Or kept my life safe from the lurking harms 
That round my steps in cunning ambush lay? 

Yet I have learned in every perilous place 

That somewhere still, unseen, His watchers wait ; 

That each dark path leads to the Father's face, 
The smile of welcome and the open gate. 



122 



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